Taken, Stolen or Hidden?
by SilverDiamonds
Summary: When Alexia from Minecraft is told to follow two friends on a journey to recover the missing feed of Quotev, she realises that there was much more to just finding the feed and bringing it back.
1. Chapter 1

**_Hi, this is my first story. As you can already see it's kinda crappy and was first published on Quotev (that's why there's the references to that site). And basically thanks for clicking on the link (you probably thought it'll be more cool). But just read it._**

 _Deep in the depths of an underground Quotev secret Agency..._

"We are doing all we can, our search groups have not found anything yet."

"Quotev is a small place. No one could hide anything for long. Unless this involves people of other dimensions, it is impossible to not have found anything by now."

"We are doing all we can. We just need more time."

A figure gestures at the empty corner, which was shrouded in shadows. On an empty surface, a computer was opened but there were no commands typed into it. The green line just sat there, blinking, blinking.

The feed was nowhere to be found. Even the outer realms had been searched, every account no matter how many followers were there were searched, even the old Quotev update history was searched at the junk, but the mere presence of any feed was not there. Something was terribly wrong. Something that could affect everyone in Quotev, whether they liked it or not.

This affects you. The reader, right now, reading the very words on your screen. Looking into the past, from the future. You aren't supposed to see this. This is what is happening, so I have to tell you. This is the hard truth.

[Proton's POV]

I was roughly shaken awake by a hard push to my shoulder. The familiar sounds of the Quotev city sounds came to my ears, as I opened my eyes and they adjusted to the bright light streaming into them. A silhouette blocked some of the light, while it moved hurriedly across my vision. "Seth?"

"Where did the feed go?" He demanded.

I checked the clock above and said tiredly, "It's only 5 am, why are you even awake? What feed?"

"The feed isn't there!" He shouted.

The thought of the feed not being there was so bizarre I thought I was dreaming. I rolled over and continued sleeping, langour taking over.

It felt like seconds later when I awoke, hands reaching the edge of the bed before pulling myself up. My vision started clearing, and I heard sounds of Quotev everyday life. However, there was one thing missing - the long crowd of people outside their houses, queuing to get the earliest morning feed. The rest of the information came after, but the morning one was what they used to find out what happened in the night.

"The feed is shut off," I heard someone shout. Shut off? Then there would not be any updates. There probably wasn't any reason why the feed would be shut off. This was real bad. There wouldn't be any broadcasting or notices. We probably wouldn't know anything happening around the edges of Quotev, if at all.

But wouldn't that be the best reason to shut the feed off ? It was so make getting information harder. All we would be able to do was to rely on rumours and what people said. In the midst of my thought, my vision flashed back, into a place that sent chills down my spine.

 _"You know what you can do, Paige," a calm female voice coaxed. Her voice was soft, like the wind that was blowing over the ground. Around me was fog in the darkness, and nothing could be seen. I could not even see the speaker, who sounded younger than me. "Follow your instincts, react to the pulses of adrenalin through your veins. You are needed."_

"Who are you? Why can't I see you?" I said into the darkness as it swallowed my words. "Why am I here?"

"Ah, many questions you have. Who I am, you will find out later, for you may come across me in your travels. You are here because you need to know." The voice trailed away smoothly, but it wasn't answering my question.

" Know what ?" I said in annoyance.

"You need to know what you need to do to get the feed back. It is not shut off as they have said. Someone has taken it. As I said, you will find out the culprit later. Bring people you know with you, because each of their talents are needed. Don't delay any longer. The feed must be recovered soon."

I cocked my head, taking in all the information she told me. I have never done those 'save the world' things, but it seemed that I was truly needed. To finally be able to do something extraordinary, I was excited.

My vision turned back to reality, as the thought slowly sank in. I was likely the only one who could do it best. First, I needed people to go with, like what the voice had said. That could be Seth, and although he wasn't okay with working with Alexia, she was still someone needed on the 'team'. I just didn't know who was 'Paige'.

I turned to find Seth, just to realise he had silently stood behind me. How was I supposed to tell Seth about this?

 _Don't worry, he knows._

"We need to go," I finally said after a long while of hesitation.

"Yeah, she said we needed to get Alexia for some reason," Seth said, even though I could hear he had grudgingly agreed to whatever she told him.

[Alexia's POV]

I really hated saying this, but I had to be truthful. After that fire-guy-burning-the-room incident, I kept away from any more contact with Proton or whoever she was. She was creepy, with her ice powers, totally not my type. Maybe playing Bridge all day was better.

Until today, she just had to show up again in the Headquarters. And even worse, it had to involve Seth. That was the end if it, then? No. We had to go on a journey of sorts, since she said the Quotev feed was missing. Heck, the feed? We didn't even need the feed. Most of our events made to the feed first.

So anyway, back to the request made by Proton. I'd told her that if Seth bothered me again, he dies. Unless I die first. Which only means that I respawn back in Bridge without any points. Nothing to lose. Simple.

So we took our stuff and hiked back to Quotev mainland after getting 64 speed potions. I had warned them that they could die, but they always shrugged it off as a joke. Maybe if I kept quiet things would go better.

It was days before we managed to find a spot Proton recognised. She said she knew it was correct, even though she had never been here. The ground was made of old tiling, corrosive rain running down the little 'rivers' between the tiles. The place was deserted, yellow leaves blowing in one was as the grey clouds hung lowly. It basically looked haunted.

Then the next thing to think about was shelter. The houses where the floorboards creaked and the shops where the wooden tables were covered in cobwebs and dust bunnies behind the doors and cracked windows and broken vases.

At last, we found a fairly habitable house near the middle of the run-down place. Seth was asked to take first guard, while we split the hours between three of us. Then, we somehow managed to sleep after minutes of arguing that the air was too dusty.

 _Alexia..._ a smooth voice called to me. I turned on my bed, thinking that I had imagined the sound.

 _You're not imagining. You have to listen._

No... I was dreaming.

 _There is no time. The feed is being destroyed. You have to move!_ The voice urged me, harder this time. _Only you can save the feed. Your friends only help._

What?

I talked back.

 _Tell your friends they need to hurry. You have to follow. Only you can save the feed, lieutenant._

There was a pause.

 _Heat... Wake up. Wake up!_

I awoke with a start. Heat... Yes, that was right. The air was burning. I smelt burnt wood. Oh crap...

It was 4 am in the morning. The sky was still dark, but the fires blazing around glared into my eyes. Damn, Seth was gone. Don't tell me he was trying to kill me again.

I shook Proton awake, and when her eyes opened, the air cooled down remarkably, although I was still sweating. She grabbed the bags and heaved them onto her shoulder, before running out of the doorway. The fire, like it had an evil life on its own, crackled.

"Se-" I started, but Proton stopped me and shushed, leading me towards the edges of the place. And Seth was there, but he was not creating the fire. He was being attacked by a lion-goat-snake-creature-that-could-breathe-fire.

He wasn't setting it on fire, but was actually using his control over fire to prevent the house that Proton and I were in. It was massive in size, and totally not what I had expected to come attacking us in the night. And sure enough, it was like it knew it wouldn't be expected.

Instantly I recalled what I had read a few months back, in a book that was lying in the restricted section of the library. _The_ _Chimera,_ it read, _is a deadly creature with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a venom-spitting snake's tail._ Yep, deadly enough.

But it never said how to kill it.

So we were stuck. If we ran, it would probably chase us and burn us to a crisp. But if we didn't run, there was only one option - to stay and fight. And to hope for the best.

I took out my bow, aiming for its eyes, but its movement was so erratic the arrows got nowhere near them. Then the next part was to aim for the mouth, which left more room for errors. I managed to get a couple of arrows in its throat, but the fire came out and just burnt the sticks.

Yeah, those arrows were made of wood, obviously it could get burnt. There was only one weapon on me which couldn't be burnt - my sword. It seemed logical enough. After all, luck wasn't on my side since the time we left.

So I concentrated in where its mouth was, and I found a really subtle pattern, but it was a pattern nonetheless. It was something. So calculating the time my sword would take to close the distance between itself and the Chimera, I let it fly.

During that matter of nanoseconds I was weaponless, about a hundred thoughts streamed into my mind. Did I know the chances of missing? Why had I taken that risk? If it never worked what would I do? What could I do after that? But as suddenly as the thought started, they ended when I saw the _Chimera_ disintegrate into yellow dust, and the sword clattered back to the ground from a height.

"Wow," I deadpanned.

"That's some cool shit. Like _really_ cool shit," I heard Seth say, but I never believed him. He could have made the _Chimera_ come, since fire and fire, and since he had actually _volunteered_ to take first shift, it made me suspect him more. Why shouldn't I? After all people in the world rely on trickery and deception to succeed. This could merely be a test of my ability. Like me, killing one of the world's most oldest monsters straight from Greek mythology?

Unlikely. I was quite sure they weren't that easy to kill indeed. If only I could watch the re-play of what happened in slow motion, I would have noticed what actually happened to it. Maybe it was all part of Seth's 'magic package' that he got, somehow.

[Seth's POV]

Regret. That was one thing I thought I'd never do. I'd thought killing Alexia was the best idea - just to get her diamonds and to get revenge. I totally shouldn't have done that. Now it had ruined my chances of having Alexia as a friend, a close one to be specific.

I thought 'i was starting to like her a little. The awkwardness I felt around her - that was why I took first shift. To clear my mind and focus on what was happening, and not my little fantasies where I had never done anything negative at Alexia.

However, even though I had been pretty helpful to her since the start of the journey, she had been giving me cold stares, and only answering with single words. I noticed her keeping away, and she had somewhat intimidated me by her hazel-brown eyes, but that wasn't stopping me from liking her.

I couldn't stop thinking about her, but she was making it difficult. There probably wasn't any chance of getting her to like me. It was so hard - and now it was actually my fault for making things even harder. She looked like she thought I had made the _Chimera_ problem, and so she looked distasteful and annoyed.

I just wanted to turn time back. To re-think my actions, so I wouldn't feel any regret. This, I learnt, was one of the worst feelings I could ever get. That slow sinking feeling but mixed with helplessness...that dropping of your heart and veins...that closing of your eyes and you just want to appear back at where you started to make things perfect.

Why...

Why must I be cursed with this feeling? I never felt good enough, even though I was the oldest. Why was life so unlucky since that day? That day when I was so sure I was correct, when I was so sure I could win... When I had the perfect plan. I choked on a sob.

Crap no, I couldn't be seen crying. That just wasn't me. But no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't work. I was aware of Proton and Alexia looking at me, and I was so tempted to just vaporise them. At least they wouldn't have to bother me again.

My thoughts blurred as I trudged along with them, and after a while, I found ourselves in a snowy place - jungle like, but instead covered in white snow where there were no footprints in sight. Just...snow. The sky was getting a little too dark, and it was half an hour after the sun had set. There were stars.

We were hiking uphill, the steepness increasing with every kilometer. My face was getting cold, and my lips were dry. Just as I turned, I saw Alexia shiver. I wrapped my sweater around her and she looked at me and whispered, "There's something not right. There's something here."

I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but a voice cut in. "Very good, my girl. Hunting has indeed improved your senses."

I recognised that voice. It was in my dreams, telling me what to do. It knew what I felt and thought, it knew what I wanted to do. It guided me since the start of the journey, and I was quite sure Proton was to.

I turned to the direction of the voice, and saw a girl, about 18, standing in front of me. She was wearing a black knee-length dress with a hood. Her skin was ghostly pale, but her eyes couldn't be seen.

"Who are you?" I said.

"I am Akari, goddess of light," came the reply. She never moved forward, but stood in the shadows. The irony of that...

"Hah, goddess of 'light', you mean," I mocked.

She lifted her hood and revealed her platinum blonde hair and her dark eyes. "Darkness is just the absence of light."

 **Aaa okay thanks for reading 3**


	2. Chapter 2

**WAIT!**

 **Just to say before you read, that I'm like vvv sorry for all the crappiness in this story. Okay. Now you can read.**

[Seth's POV]

What Akari just said wasn't very hard to understand, but all three of us stared at her, like she wasn't human. No wait, she wasn't human. She had claimed to be the goddess of light, but that was totally unbelievable. No one actually did that anymore.

"Follow me, I'll tell you something essential for your mission," she said.

At last, we found a safe place within some rocks and leaves. We went inside, and once we were settled Akari recited:

 _On a journey lies bumps  
To retrieve what was stolen  
But truth will be revealed  
And what matters will be taken_

"What?" I asked. It sounded like a prophecy, and it probably was a prophecy, but the line that disturbed me most was 'but truth will be revealed'. It sounded as if it meant that we were fake.

But no one could be entirely sure, right? Since prophecies could never be straight. The most annoying thing was that there wouldn't be anyone who could understand it completely, until it had happened.

Then, Akari turned to Alexia and said softly, even though we could hear, "Use your feelings. They are the most accurate. One day, you will find your answer. One day, you'll finally be satisfied."

With that, she was gone. I fell asleep immediately, thinking about all that happened throughout the day. I thought that maybe something - what I felt - was essential, so that we had chances to prove ourselves.

 _"Weak...weakling!" a voice cursed from the darkness. "If the feed is to important to you, protect it yourself! Get your own people!"_

"I'm not asking that from you," another voice said defiantly. "I'm warning you. You have to know this. The feed is the beacon of power for all of you. If it is successfully destroyed, all of us will die."

"I don't care about dying. I am death. I choose who dies...I can choose you."

"Very well."

 _I was beside a winding staircase, in a round room. I willed fires to appear, but none of them did. A cold laughter erupted at the other side of the room._

 _"Fire, you say?" A figure walked up to me. It pointed it's sword at me, and it sidestepped to reveal an item I had been looking for in a long time. A disappeared item. An item precious to the whole of Quotev. The feed. Various lights blinked in successive order. It was in plain sight._

The figure stepped back again to block me from it. It's sword was still pointed at me. Alexia? It paused. The tip dipped.

But the sword was swung anyway and it was going to hit me in a matter of microseconds-

"No!" My eyelids flew open at the sound of a shout. I was drenched in cold sweat, and my palms were clammy. Then I realised I had made the sound. Proton was looking at me like she had seen a ghost, and Alexia was staring at me with her eyebrows raised.

"Stop scaring us," Alexia said.

I sucked in another breath of air before saying, "Alexia...I saw you..."

Before she even replied, I continued, "You tried to kill me again."

[ Proton's POV]

This sucked. Seth was being the most stupid and brainless he ever was. Like, one moment he hated Alexia until he was determined to kill her, and another moment he was so kind to her, keeping her warm and making sure she was safe.

That kinda creeped me out, since Seth wasn't so 'strange' as I thought he would be. There were obvious evidence that he was crushing on Alexia real bad, but she didn't even notice. Maybe she wasn't used to it, or she didn't know. This complicated the already-complicated matters that were in their way.

I tried looking for signals from the feed again, and suddenly it beeped. This was the nearest we had went. The feed was approximately 2 kilometers from where we were. That wasn't so far off. As I informed Seth and Alexia, I noticed Seth looked more uncertain that what he usually was.

Thinking that it was only about not finding the feed, I continued uphill until I reached a snowy plain. There was a fairly tall structure, which looked like there was no one living there. The signal became even stronger, and it convinced me that the feed was in that tower. We were almost there-

And yet... It seemed so far. When we got into the tower, we could only rely on the signals coming from the feed.

We hurried into the tower, into the darkness. The shadows were haunting, and it was like there were people watching us. The missing feed - the signal was getting stronger every time we went up one step. We climbed up the stairs, all the way to the top. The sun was already setting, and the feed was already within an arm's length. It was just so dark we couldn't see where it was.

I turned my head to see Seth attempting to create some fire, but none of them came. The air didn't change its temperature, and the room was equally dark as it was when we came in.

"Fire, you say?" A voice cut through the silence. A laugh cold and merciless. "Finding something?"

A male stepped out of the shadows. He was a year older than Alexia, but that wasn't the point. In his hand was a long sword, which was pointed at Seth. Alexia was watching intently.

"I know what you want," he said. "You want your feed back."

Behind his back, lying in plain sight, was the feed. Seth was reaching out to it when he was stopped by the tip of the sword. "Too bad you can't get it then."

He swung the sword, but it never touched Seth as my eyes widened in horror.

His sword collided with another one, similar in length, and Proton had definitely seen it a few times. It was Alexia's, but there was no time to think. She was sure that her powers couldn't work in the tower, so she shouldn't try it. The only thing was to watch helplessly by the side.

They were quite equal in ability, each one not letting the other overpower them. While Alexia was occupying his attention, Seth and I sneaked round the back of the tower to retrieve the feed. It wasn't so simple, when the top of the tower had a very small space and you may get impaled if you were too close.

Now, how to get the feed was the problem. It was too easy to be noticed, and taking it would get yourself stabbed. Alexia sensed that we would be going to take the feed, and led the fight over to the other corner of the room, allowing us a few seconds to unplug the feed, and run down the stairs onto the level below.

Then all of a sudden, the sounds stopped. "Who are you?" Alexia asked. "And why do you have our feed?"

I crept up the stairs. His sword was pointed at her neck. Her sword was pointed at his chest.

"This has just went well... Actually it went as planned. Alexia, this is Luke," Akari appeared and said.

"No, wait, what? You planned for me to fight him? Just to do what? That's not very nice, you know. What's all the point of all this?" Alexia demanded.

Akari opened her mouth to speak, but the sound of boots clanking up the staircase interrupted her. "They're here," Luke said.

"Who?"

"The Facebook agents. They've just got some Greek monsters on their side. At least, the ones that they could get," Luke explained.

[Alexia's POV]

Interesting...

So first this guy stole the feed, then there was a kinda creepy prophecy thing, and now when we were so _close_ to getting the feed, he just had to make things difficult. Like, it's likely he was with Facebook, trying to look like he was on our side. And now I'd just realised Akari had actually planned for us to meet this way. Isn't very kind.

And... OH CRAP WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS ON THE WALLS-

I jumped. Yeah. I've never seen those things before. And even worse, I didn't know how they worked or moved. But to get up those walls - they would need to be pretty strong and agile. And it had poison spines - which made it look like it could kill just by touching it.

And, they were coming straight for us. Not the feed. I guessed that there would be others to retrieve the feed once those monsters were happily feasting on our dead bodies. I was determined to keep my life, even if it meant that I had to fight alongside someone that might backstab me.

They lunged. And they were fast. Their hard claws carving scratch marks on the concrete floor as we stood back-to-back. Actually that's pretty easy when you already knew how the other fought. But they were so fast, we could only rely on instinct. And those _manticores_ , as I learnt later, were sent by Facebook to steal the feed.

So now you're like, _how does a_ manticore _steal a feed?_

To be honest, no idea either. But that was that, we had to just stand around in a circle trying to defend ourselves, trying to complement each other's moves while still doing our own.

It wasn't easy, since they had an outer covering that was terribly hard to pierce, the diamond sword swiping uselessly off it, which only annoyed it more. But with the right angle and enough force, it finally poked through and one of them exploded into yellow dust. The other soon died later, and we stopped only to realise that there were more noises coming up the stairs.

Had we totally forgotten about them? Yeah.

And who actually knew what they were secretly plotting down there? No one.

So shouldn't we go down to take a look and most likely stop them from setting up their 'grand plan' to steal the 'grand feed'? After all we'll get the element of surprise, and well, that could help pretty much. I ran down the stairs, and even though some clanks were made by my shoes the Facebook agents didn't hear them as their noise covered it up.

"No, wait," I heard Luke's voice behind me. "You still don't understand."

"Understand what?"

"I've read the feed. I know you're from Minecraft. And how where this place is doesn't work like how Minecraft works. You don't respawn. You have to be careful," he warned.

I could hear a tinge of sadness in his voice, but I ignored it. "You shouldn't have told me that. Then I'll be 'too' careful and die for hesitating."

I turned, an d continued down the stairs.

[Luke's POV]

I was quite sure she reminded me of Thalia...and Annabeth. But mostly Annabeth. Like how she seemed to be ready for anything.

I tried so hard to forget them, and live this new life alone, since I knew that no one in camp who was still sane would let me stay. And being alone wasn't too hard, when there was no one within a radius of a few kilometers.

I only came to this place because Akari let me live (most likely against the will of the gods) on two conditions - that I swear on the river Styx not to make the same mistake again and not to betray my 'real friends', although it was probably impossible to find that out until it was too late.

For the most of those time, the feed did a job something similar to Thalia's tree - preventing monsters from entering, although not keeping mortals out.

I hurried down after Alexia, hoping not to run into her as she kept stopping to stab a few people who were on the higher levels. I was sure there was something real fishy (not making a pun there) about what those Facebook agents were doing.

Not many of them were coming up as I thought. I had certainly saw much more at the first level. They were probably trying to blast the tower's foundations, or even worse - to bomb the whole tower and destroy the feed.

I overtook Alexia, who was still near the top trying to push someone off the edge, while fighting another person who was holding a sword and pretty much preventing himself from being skewered. Then, I reacher the first level, and realised that they planned to do.

They were setting up a drilling machine, which was already trying to get past the first level concrete. That explained some vibrations in the tower, but I never thought much about that.

Now I got it. They were drilling upwards to get our feed, hoping that we wouldn't come down to take a look. But they were prepared for this. They took out their arrows and were drawing back their bows.

I rushed up the stairs, as they followed me. I turned back and started to hit the nearest one when I realised there was no need to. Alexia was at that floor already killing each agent one by one, and none of them knew where she was. She changed her position after every shot, and with luck they would never find her.

Running to the topmost floor, I unplugged the feed, closed the laptop which was where it was stored for now, and headed down again. This time, I saw the male and female who came with Alexia near the machine, but not close enough to deactivate it.

There was the good news - and the bad news.

The good news: the feed was not where they thought it was, and so they wouldn't find it. The bad news: they would go after me first. And they would do anything to get the feed.

The other bad news: they would surely spot us when we were taking the feed away. Seems easy for someone like me, right? Nah.

No plans. Just grab the feed and run. Alexia seemed to know what I was doing, and stopped me.

"Not before you tell me why you have our feed," she said.

"Fine. I'll tell you. I was keeping it safe! Those Facebook agents - they're at your main security agency. They're finding every part of Quotev for your feed. I was keeping it safe from them - I didn't know they would even search here.

Alexia didn't seem to trust me at first, but instead she said, "Then let's go, or Akari'll have to revive you again." With that, she took the feed and turned to run into the snow, the others following behind. Nowhere to go, I followed too.

She winded and turned when running from the tower, as if she knew exactly where the next arrow would be. All the arrows that missed were making holes in the snow, and even I had to make sure they wouldn't hit me.

Once we were in the forest near the tower but out of sight of the Facebook agents, I couldn't help but notice that Alexia was actually quite pretty. I didn't know whether it was because of her circlet that made her look like a hunter of Artemis, or-

"Luke, stop staring at me," I heard Alexia's voice. "That's real...creepy."

"Oh uhhh, sorry," I quickly said. In my mind, it was screaming 'SHE SAW ME' or 'SHE KNOWS', or something along those lines.

[Alexia's POV]

We had the feed. Next, we had to get to Quotev Headquarters immediately to return the feed. Returning the feed was easy. Once you knew your activity destination, you could easily use the feed itself to teleport yourself to Headquarters.

I started to type the command into the feed, and pressed 'enter'. The familiar feeling of being spun through an empty void made me somewhat relaxed, knowing that I was back in a place I knew.

We hit the ground hard. I looked around, but only saw Proton. Seth and Luke would have probably went back to wherever they came from by now. I heard shooting sounds and suddenly they stopped.

"Someone's here," I heard someone say. They were probably talking about me.

I took my bow, passing the feed to Proton. I silently pushed open the door, and I saw Akari standing in the corner. There was another in the other corner, pointing a gun at me.

"Ah, lieutenant Alexia, returned the feed you have," Akari said.

I took the feed, moved the older computer aside, and plugged the laptop in. The feed updated itself real quick and people were on the feed again. Behind me, I saw a blinding flash of light and a sound of a gasp.

The man in the corner was lying motionless, and Akari now wore a sleeveless white dress. She smiled at me (very creepily) and said, as if I didn't know, "You have restored the feed, the beacon of power for us. Dark shall no longer have power over the light."

[Seth's POV]

Luke and I stood outside the portal, me standing a little way back. We both were waiting for Alexia and Proton to come back from Headquarters. I smiled internally as I mentally rehearsed what I was going to say when Alexia came.

She came soon after, grinning stupidly with Proton for some weird joke. I went up to her, and said, "How's it like to be home?"

She seemed a little awkward, but replied anyway, "It's good...I guess."

Then she turned and pecked lightly on Luke's cheek.

 **Thanks :/**

 **I'm still cringing omg**


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